Stupid things that PO's did to your car

[BillBrasky]

325ix- Someone must have had the shifter out at one point and either didn't put it back together right or used the incorrect parts. Its sloppy as hell and the whole shift pattern is about 3-4 inches forward. I've been driving it that way for a over a year now because I haven't had time to get to it.

The shifter finally fell apart one night when I was driving home at 1am and I had to pull off the side of the road. I lifted the shifter boot to reach up in and manually put it in gear. I was shocked at what I found.




I managed to put it in fourth and drove it back to my shop. Here is the whole thing from underneath. Someone had tried to replace the shifter without removing the transfer case. They used a sawzall to gain access from the top and yanked out the welded in bracket that holds the rear bushing. They drilled two holes crooked and mounted a different bushing from another car.











The previous owner was a domestic car enthusiast. It always seems their favorite tools are sawzalls, cutting torches and BFH's.

[serdar255]

Owned it, the girl i bought it from owned it for two years before selling it to me.

The PO bought it at 40k from the original owner and drove 33k in 2 years, the car was left outside and got dings, i think it was side swiped or something so the car was painted. There are water marks on the paint that wont come off either. (I think they happened when the paint was still soft from the repaint) If i got this car from the original owner my car would be ridiculously mint.


Best thing she did to the car was maintained the engine (I appreciate that she did that and didnt skimp on it) AND Sold it to ME!

This car is staying with me for the long haul, i plan to get it stripped to bare metal and repainted properly when funds allow. :)

[flyboyx]

ooh! ooh! i'll play this game. i have an entire thread devoted to this subject:

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=276544

[Sea Aych]

Not my PO but probably one of the ones before him (mine sold me the car soon after he bought it) installed some horrible after market alarm with what looked like only a hammer and needle nose plyers...Wiring under the kick panel completely garbled...and all wired were the same colour on the alarm system. He also attemped to install a new dome light near the check panel by cutting a hole in the ceiling with a saw and shoving a trunk light assembly into it. however in the process he cut/destroyed the electric wiring up to that section so neither that dome light or the map lights work at all. *sigh*...
Also that after-market alarm was siliconed way to close to heated stuff in the engine bay so it was pretty melted.

[oliver.r]

there was a lot of whacky stuff that was done to my car by pos but I think the worse one was replacing a fuel line with the same line used for coolant from block to reservoir.
they both failed

[MrSlacker]

My PO purchased FULL Ground Control Coil Over kit and didnt install any of the shocks that came with it. Car is riding on POS orange Koni shocks and front housings aren't cut. Also stripped all holes on Camber Plates... sigh

[Northern]

My iS didn't give me any wtfs other than the head unit/amp/alarm install, and the fact that the left trunk pocket had the sunroof drain come loose while the antenna grommet failed, and that corner was left for dead.

My ix on the otherhand used to be a fantastic metallic grey with a touch of blue/green and some PO got the bright idea to paint the whole car black, delete the side rub strips, and paint the taillights entirely matte red.

Not to mention that the car was an early euro ix, and was missing the rear 3.64 diff with the front 3.64 sitting in the trunk with mangled spider gears, early euro bits swapped for plastic bumpers, rusty valence, and us ellips.

They didn't even bother with factory connectors, bought shitty dual filament bulb sockets for the turn signals, cut a hole behind the turn signal, and taped it into the hole they cut. The connectors for the us ellips look like they were from an ebay hid kit. Foglights aren't hooked up and are missing the bulb covers on the bottom. It has the fog switch, but no wires. The best part, is that everything that is hooked up is just twisted together with a bit of electrical tape wrapped around it.


This isn't even mentioning the 20-30 patches toward the rear of the cat that were never painted behind and are now rusting out from the inside, and the license plate lights, one of which was cut out 2x too big, the other welded shut.

I had no words.

[tytypetersen]

Project Convertible is just fixing POs stupid things. The PO before PO took good care of it. But PO destroyed the car in a few years. Engine was overheated and probably kept driving it. Engine was toast. IS front air dam was ziptied on. Dents and scrapes everywhere on the newish respray. 70 sidewalls on 14s. He sat on the redone seats with a "knife" and ripped the perfect seat :hitler:.

The worst body damage was on the rocker panel. We bought the car and it was cracking a bit. We chip away... maybe about 3 inches deep of bondo with nuts and bolts as filler for the filler... But car is straight thankfully.
Most these problems fixed now though.

[joncrz]

My iS didn't give me any wtfs other than the head unit/amp/alarm install, and the fact that the left trunk pocket had the sunroof drain come loose while the antenna grommet failed, and that corner was left for dead.

My ix on the otherhand used to be a fantastic metallic grey with a touch of blue/green and some PO got the bright idea to paint the whole car black, delete the side rub strips, and paint the taillights entirely matte red.

Not to mention that the car was an early euro ix, and was missing the rear 3.64 diff with the front 3.64 sitting in the trunk with mangled spider gears, early euro bits swapped for plastic bumpers, rusty valence, and us ellips.

They didn't even bother with factory connectors, bought shitty dual filament bulb sockets for the turn signals, cut a hole behind the turn signal, and taped it into the hole they cut. The connectors for the us ellips look like they were from an ebay hid kit. Foglights aren't hooked up and are missing the bulb covers on the bottom. It has the fog switch, but no wires. The best part, is that everything that is hooked up is just twisted together with a bit of electrical tape wrapped around it.


This isn't even mentioning the 20-30 patches toward the rear of the cat that were never painted behind and are now rusting out from the inside, and the license plate lights, one of which was cut out 2x too big, the other welded shut.

I had no words.

jesus christ, I understand your avatar now ...

[thatphysicsguy]

Let's see mine aren't as extreme as some of the ones here, but might as well gripe while i have the chance:

-Stripped alternator and power steering tensioner brackets
-stripped distributor bolts
-nearly everything in the engine bay was over-torqued leading to stripped holes and broken bolts.
-used the wrong bulbs for the brake lights and whittled away the plastic housing just so the bulb could fit through
-hired a bad stereo shop to do a very bad (read worse than stock) stereo install.
-let the antenna grommet wear out and leak.

But all things considered, it is nothing compared to the crap you guys had to deal with, damn.

[joncrz]

Overall I'd say I got pretty lucky, however 3/4 of the car has been resprayed without any sanding or any primer (i know because theres a spot where the new red paint has chipped away exposing the factory pinstripe)

Also someone siliconed the oilpan because they were too cheap to replace the gasket the right way . Honestly its not that big of a deal but seriously stuff like that just pisses me off

[e30austin]

I could very well write a novel about stupid shit my PO did to the car...

[clarkson]

This:


For a friggin stereo.... cut the hole to duct the subwoofer into the cabin. On a m3 too...

[Ray Smoodiver]

Holy fuck! Planning on repairing that properly?


Found a great one today, the m-tec II front spoiler was sikaflexed to the sides of the valance. Literally had to peel it away from the car.

[clarkson]

Yes will be getting a donor car for a rhd conversion so will ues the parcel shelf too for the hole repair. Couldn't believe it when I saw it.